PNG asylum policy met by protests

A $200,000 ''bounty'' has been put on the head of people smugglers in Australia. The Rudd government will pay the reward for the arrest of those involved in the human trade.

Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said people smuggling was increasingly organised in Australia rather than being solely conducted in Indonesia.

''These people are peddling in misery and death [so] we are putting a bounty on their heads. We have taken the product they are selling off the shelves; we also need to lock these people up.''

A protester holds a placard during a protest in Melbourne against the government's asylum seeker policy. Photo: AFP

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Friday all asylum seekers who came by boat would be transferred to Papua New Guinea, where they would be processed and settled if they were found to be refugees.

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The ''hardline'' stance has enraged refugee advocates, who are predicting a legal challenge to the measure after successfully defeating the so-called Malaysia solution in the High Court.

The dramatic toughening of Labor's stance on people seeking asylum has been seen as clearing the decks for the announcement of an election date, as soon as this week.

Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Ramzi Jabbour said police believed a number of people-smuggling syndicates were operating from Australia, with tentacles in Indonesia and Malaysia.

He said people smuggling was often conducted by refugees who had settled in Australia and wanted to bring their families to join them.

''There's not one syndicate, there's numerous … and the commodity in this case, unfortunately, are human beings.''

People who facilitate people arriving by boat face 10 years' jail for bringing one person to Australia, and 20 years' jail for bringing five or more people to Australia.

As protests were held in every capital city on Saturday against the new detention and resettlement plan, the first asylum seeker boat to be affected by the government's dramatic policy shift sailed into Australian waters. More than 80 people most of whom are from Iran will be the first to be denied the chance to apply for refugee protection to Australia because they came by boat.

An Indonesian people smuggler source said the policy was unlikely to stop people coming by boat. ''It can't stop boats … I talked to a few smugglers today, they say their passengers are still ready to go by boat. The basic thing is that either in Australia or in PNG, the refugees have to start their lives from zero, and at the most they just want to avoid being killed.''

The government has launched a massive advertising campaign highlighting its new approach to asylum seekers, which will cost $2.1 million in the first week alone. It included full-page newspaper advertisements across the country. Independent Senator Nick Xenophon said he would make a formal complaint about the government's advertising, describing it as a blatantly political campaign paid for by the taxpayer.

The Greens said the Labor party should pay for the campaign.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said Australia should not rely on PNG to come to its aid, saying the solution had to be found in Australia.

''And I will never subcontract out to other countries the solution of problems in this country,'' he said.

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman said given people could ''row across in a tinnie or a canoe'' the four kilometres from Papua New Guinea into Queensland, the agreement with PNG would create a new wave of immigration through the Torres Strait.

But Immigration Minister Tony Burke ridiculed the claims and said there was no conflict between being humanitarian and pragmatic.

''I want there to be fewer people drowning on the high seas, and I make absolutely no apology for that.''

PNG's cabinet was told on Friday the Manus Island centre could hold up to 3000 asylum seekers, although Mr Rudd stressed there was no cap on the number of asylum seekers that could be covered by the deal.

The Greens' Sarah Hanson-Young said the deal was ''a rush to cruelty as Kevin Rudd rushes to the polls''.

When the news about Mr Rudd's PNG plan reached asylum seekers waiting in Indonesia, ''it was like a bomb going off'', according to one Iranian man. Bizhan, who has survived a recent boat sinking trying to get to Australia, said people were shocked and confused.

But the 33-year-old said it would stop him getting on another boat. He said he would wait for settlement by the UN refugee program. Bizhan said he believed it would also stop Iranians from taking the people smuggling route from Iran to Australia.

Abdul Karim, a Hazara man who came to Australia by boat in 2000, said he did not believe it would have an immediate impact on arrivals.

''It will take some time for people to hear what has happened,'' he said.

He doubted it would deter asylum seekers as the government's recent halt on the processing of applications had not done that.

Disgusted refugee advocates have branded the plan

''shameful'' and a ''disgraceful and desperate election ploy''.

''The Labor leader who formerly said he would not move to the right on refugees has channelled the very worst of John Howard's anti-refugee policy,'' Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition said.

The Asylum Seekers Centre has called on the government to guarantee asylum seekers sent to PNG would be treated with compassion, permitted to reunite with family in Australia and would have access to the fundamental requirements for human dignity - health and education services, housing, and employment opportunities.

21 Jul
Kevin Rudd has been accused of being ‘‘misleading to the point of dishonesty’’ in promising that no refugees arriving by boat will settle in Australia, with the Coalition highlighting a litany of potential pitfalls.